Firm appointed as lead designer on redevelopment of Frimley Park Hospital
Arcadis has been awarded a £6.6m job to design the rebuild of the RAAC-affected Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey.
Frimley Park is one of seven hospitals on the government’s New Hospital Programme which have been prioritised for redevelopment due to the widespread presence of deteriorating Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC).
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust has used the £1.6bn NHS Shared Business Services’ Healthcare Planning, Construction Consultancy and Ancillary Services framework to procure an architect-led design team (ALDT) for the hospital’s redesign.
Arcadis has now been appointed to the ALDT role as lead designer and will coordinate around 30 disciplines including architecture, structural and civil engineering, MEP, sustainability and fire safety.
The project will see the construction of a completely new 114,000sq m hospital on a greenfield site, with the building set to be compliant with the New Hospital Programme’s Hospital 2.0 approach with the use of standardised materials and components.
The job also includes the design of a 3,000sq m extension to Heatherwood Hospital in Berkshire following a value-engineered and “non-standard” design approach, according to the Trust.
Arcadis will also oversee the refurbishment and reconfiguration of a portion of the existing Frimley Park Hospital which is unaffected by RAAC.
Frimley Park Hospital was built in the early 1970s using RAAC beams, which typically have a design life of around 30 years. The building was the subject of a safety alert in 2019 due to the degraded state of the material, resulting in operating theatres being closed in 2022 to allow urgent repairs.
The other six RAAC hospitals on the New Hospital Programme are Airedale General Hospital in West Yorkshire, Hinchingbrook Hospital in Cambridgeshire, Leighton Hospital in Cheshire, James Paget University Hospital and Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Norfolk and West Suffolk Hospital in Suffolk.
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